garrick wrote:bwgood77 wrote:Jdiddy701 wrote:I personally think Ayton and Nurkic are damn near the same basketball player with the same issues. Why people might put DA over Nurk: potential and availability. At some point, potential in the same sentence with DA has to stop. He is who he is. I also question some of Nurk’s recent injuries, was he really hurt or was Portland just tanking?
Nurkic should play the limited role better than DA can. He’s tougher, sets better screens, better passer, actually backs smaller players down in the paint and makes almost half $$$ of what Deandre Ayton makes.
Even saying all that, I just wish we could have got more. Maybe we’re not done. We’ll see.
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They are definitely not the same player, except with the motor issues for both, as well as little to no shot blocking. Nurkic can't really dunk (or doesn't) yet also can't shoot outside of 8 feet, except he just added the 3.. He is slightly better defensively overall but not as good as Ayton is when Ayton is engaged (though Nurk has to be engaged too and I guess he gets more engaged the more he is involved offensively). Nurkic can't play as many minutes and will get winded more quickly. Ayton averages more rebounds but you could also argue Nurkic is slightly better rebounder per 36 (though he will never play more than high 20s).
Nurkic is a better passer, worse FT shooter (66% this last year), and not a very efficient offense player. He did shoot 36% from 3 this year and hit almost 1 per game, making 43 in 52 games. He cannot really finish at the rim. I noticed a post on the Blazers board saying they won't miss Nurkic not being able to finish at the rim and will be happy to see Ayton at his 80% instead of Nurkic at his 64.5%.
The main + will probably just be having 5 more years experience and just being able to immediately kind of fit in and not overthink things or lose confidence like Ayton would...and he can move the ball. He won't have nearly the gravity that Ayton did but on the + side he may draw his defender to the 3pt line on occasion to open things up (but they also may just dare him to shoot it and double on KD instead).
I think the pluses are ball movement, possibly 3 pt shooting if it wasn't a 1 year thing at the 36%, and perhaps better screening and slightly better defense when engaged.
But those who were frustrated with Ayton not always finishing strong and with his turnovers will be more frustrated with those things with Nurkic (along with missing free throws). Nurkic had 2.3 turnovers per game in 26 mpg (down from 2.6 per game the year before) while Ayton had 2.1 per game in 30 mpg (down from 1.9 the year before). Ayton averages 2 turnovers per 36 in his career and Nurkic 3.2.
I have a feeling we will miss a lot of the easy buckets DA gave us that came out of unscripted plays like the mid range jumper or finishes around the paint despite what the most ardent DA haters will claim.
Also not really mentioned by many is how many picks DA was setting with Booker, can Nurkic do the same without getting fatigued and more importantly can he keep defenses honest by hitting the open mid range jumper?
Feels like Mat Ishbia is just using pure optimism at this point that the starting 5 will not suffer any major injuries and that we really don't need to keep any young assets to maintain our winning ways. I still have serious doubts about how competitive we will be the more KD and to a lesser extent Beal ages.
Booker will be in his prime and to potentially waste his prime years with an aging and injured KD and Beal with a subpar roster seems foolish but maybe blind optimism will work out. Time will tell.
I just don't think they want to invest that much in a C. The Blazers were better defensively with Eubanks at C and often finished games with him. I do wonder how much we wil play small ball, but I expect Nurkic to play about 25 mpg, Eubanks 15 and maybe small ball or Bol the rest.
But if Nurkic is injured, we will be forced to play small when Eubanks sits, or hope Bol can play, but I can't imagine the other starters would be happy with Bol in there. It will really be tough if Nurkic and KD are both out. It will basically be Eubanks and a bunch of good guards with maybe Bates-Diop at the 4 or something.
